This Week in Startups - Building brands and community + influencer marketing that actually works with Dee Murthy | E1740

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Dee Murthy joins Jason to discuss the origin of the Group Chat podcast before talking about his new startup, Ghost (1:44). They then delve into fostering a community, staying true to your brand, and more! (30:12)  (0:00) Dee Murthy joins Jason  (1:44) The Origin of Group Chat podcast (11:32) Embroker - Use code TWIST to get an extra 10% off insurance at https://Embroker.com/twist (13:06) The impact of the Group Chat podcast (18:49) The premise of Ghost (22:57) QuickNode - Get one month free by using code TWIST at https://go.quicknode.com/twist (24:15) Focusing on your customers and raising capital (30:12) Fostering a community (37:26) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://openphone.com/twist (39:00) Understanding your brand’s voice (46:09) Effective influencer marketing  (52:01) More on Ghost   FOLLOW Dee: https://twitter.com/deemurthy FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis Subscribe to our YouTube to watch all full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkkhmBWfS7pILYIk0izkc3A?sub_confirmation=1 FOUNDERS! Subscribe to the Founder University podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/founder-university/id1648407190

Bud Light has never been a politically charged brand and their core consumer is just, it's the run-of-the-mill guy that watching the NFL. That is their core consumer. It's bros, right? Like, I want to have a Bud Light when I'm at a football game. That's, you know, beginning and end of it. Yeah. That's it.

And I appreciate their attempt to go younger, but like it doesn't make sense. You're an alcohol brand. You know, if you went to a 30-year-old consumer, it's not like they're, anti-anything, they just don't participate in that conversation. And they just honestly, all they care about is football and racing and basketball playoffs. It's a very simple-minded consumer. And so I thought it was like inappropriate for Bud Light from a marketing strategy to do anything outside of the fairway.

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works anywhere. Get 20% off your first six months at openphone.com slash twist. All right, everybody, got a real treat for you today. I don't know. Last year, somebody texted me or DMed me on the Twitter and said, hey, this is a podcast. They were just talking about you and they stole the format of All In. And I said, okay, let me go check. that out, and I checked it out, and I found this amazingly fun podcast called Group Chat. That's been around for two or three years longer than All In. So quite the opposite. It seems like we may have inadvertently stolen your format, and one of the three hosts of that is Dee Murthy. He's also an entrepreneur, and I thought I would have him on the pod. Welcome to This Week at Startups, Dee.

Thank you for having me. And it was so nice when you guys launched All In because it was like peak COVID. We were coming to the office to record the podcast and it just felt like this like amazing time for content, not an amazing time for the world, but it was it was you guys came at such an important time in, I think, in people's lives. It is interesting and you guys talk about your show a lot on the show because podcasting builds community. Just like, you know, I had this experience as an author and I tell people who are becoming authors and writing books. books are basically communities. And you got to kind of build a community around your book and meet them.

And then they bring other people into the community. And podcasting is very similar. Now, you've got a company called Ghost, backed by my friends over at Union Square Ventures. And you've been in, I believe, like clothing, marketing, or creating clothes, right, for a long time? Yeah, long time. Been in fashion for 20 years, building and operating probably a dozen brands.

All right. So I heard at some point you say, we're spending all this money on marketing and we're just dumping buckets on Facebook, Instagram, whatever. And I'm not getting famous and nobody knows who I am. I should just do a goddamn podcast. Put some money into that and then see if I can build like a community around that. And so maybe you can just tell the origin story of group chat and how your business thinking behind it. And then did that actually happen or did other things also happen? Yeah, really interesting story.

So in 2016 for my business 5-4, we were about to do a transaction with a private equity firm. And we were at the finish line, 11th hour, term sheet came, life-changing money for me and my business partner. And so we're doing $75 million in business. We've finally been grinding it out since we were in college. finally, this is our moment. 11th hour, term sheet gets pulled. It's long enough, it was Carlisle. So I'll tell you who it was.

They pulled the term sheet. And at that point, obviously, everyone else in the market now smells blood. Why did the term sheet get pulled? And there was no real rationale around it. And so, you know, we ended up not doing the fundraise and just going back and focusing on our business. And what I realized at that moment is that I had no class. I have zero clout as a founder.

And it was that moment when I was around like the tech scene in L.A., San Francisco, New York, and I would see like how people looked at Travis from Uber or how they looked at Emily from Glacier or Katrina from Stitch Fix. And I was like, those founders have clout. Like people view them differently than they view me. And so I was like, I have to change this because if I was a founder with clout, maybe that term sheet wouldn't have been pulled. They went to f*** with me. Yeah. And so I was like, how do I change that? And so I need to have a voice. I need to have an opinion. Like, even when we pitched our business, we were bootstrapped $75 million business and no one knew who we were.

Crazy. They didn't know our business. We were always private. We just ran our business and, you know, minded our own kind of way of life. And we didn't do press. We didn't do anything. And so I realized, like, it actually does matter how you communicate your business to the outside world because it does create an energy around your business. Like, and I'm sure you've seen investing and things like that, like where people want to be around with you when you're doing well. And you have like a story to tell. So I started going on this journey of like, how do I become famous? And I didn't mean it in the sense of like the rock. I didn't mean the sense.

But, you know, I wanted to be known in my community. the people in my industry. And so I started thinking to myself, I had an assistant at that time, we were like, let's go post pictures on Instagram with all my famous friends. No one cared about that. It didn't resonate with people. I'm like, we should start a daily vlog. And I'm like, no one cares about a married guy with two kids. That's not going to work. And then my partner in Young and Reckless, which is a streetwear brand we started a long time ago, was had started a podcast. And he was like, we should do a podcast together, talking about basically he would walk into my office. from Ohio, came from Akron, Ohio at age 21, became a reality TV star on MTV called Fantasy Factory.

And he was like, I ask you about all these things all day. What are interest rates? What is investing? What is this? Let's just talk about it. So we started doing this podcast. And it took about a year until we realized anyone even paid attention. Because the first episode, I think 35 people downloaded.

The second one, I think 27. So we lost 20% of our listenership on the. the first week. And so, but, but I think the, the fascinating part of it was that one day, like, I was promoting something about one of our brands and it was like one of our most successful days ever. And I realized, oh my God, there's actually a community here. And people actually care what we have to say because it actually translated into the business. Right. And so that was like our journey of, of the podcast kind of story. And like, as you know, like the power of the community when when they're engaged like podcast is the most intimate form of

media in my opinion it's like it's like you're alone time in your ear your relationship with the audience is so crazy yeah and and it's like we've seen it firsthand and now in my new business goes so many of my suppliers and buyers that are on the marketplace are listeners of the podcast right and and you know investors i meet they're like oh we listen to the pod we want to take a look at your next round. And it's so fascinating. And full circle, it's happening, right? Like, what I thought I could do six, seven years ago, it's now coming into fruition. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I think you hit on the key factor, which is podcasting. It takes a long time. Like, you got to do it for a couple of years to get good at it, to build an audience, to figure out a format that actually works. And you figured out a

good format, like a news roundtable situation. And that works. And people who are actually friends with each other, which is part of the secret of All In. So there's some like camaraderie. People like that as well. But it's so intimate because it's in your ears. I have like my little ear monitors in right now, like a newscaster. You have your AirPods in or whatever. Or you actually are old school, man.

You got the you got the wired ones in there. I'm a boomer. I'm a boomer. No, I think you're like millennial slash gen act, right? Yeah, I'm 42. So I'm on the I'm on the I'm on the I'm on the I'm on the I'm on the, On the bubble. You're on the bubble.

Who do you align with more? Sensibility-wise. Music-wise, I'm Gen Z. Okay. So you're like Drake and the other nonsense? I love nonsense, rap music. Got it. Okay.

I'm a Coachella guy. And then I would say now that I have kids, I feel more Gen X on a lot of issues. Yeah. Like your back hurts, your knees hurt, you're tired all the time. Yeah, even just like, I never cared about crime. Now I do. Right. I never cared about homelessness.

Now I do. Because it affects my daily life. When you have to protect those kids, yeah, it becomes acute. You're like, I can handle myself. Okay, I can handle myself and my partner. And then all of a sudden you got two kids or three kids. And you're like, okay, I got to defend three or four people. It becomes almost like instinctual.

Yes. But it's really interesting, like how the fans feel because you're in their ears. Maybe they're listening to the pod before they go to bed. They have a dream about it. I'm weird comments all the time for people. I had a dream about you last night. I'm like, were you listening to the pod when you fell asleep? They're like, yeah.

I'm like, think those two things are related in any way. They're like, I never thought of that. Or they go for a run or, you know, whatever, their workout. And so you're just with them all the time and they hear your voice. And I don't know if you've had this experience yet, but you order your Starbucks and that somebody turns around and they're like, D? Yeah. Group chat.

And check out? Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, especially like, you know, your guys is, you have such a large audience, like your voices are in our heads all day. Yeah. So it's like, if you heard it in the wild, you're like, oh, my God. You know, it's like, oh, I know that voice. I know that.

It's like Tom Broca of this era. You know what I mean? Like that feels like that. Correct. Yeah. Like people, and also it's habitual. That's the thing other people don't realize is once you put that into your, you subscribe to it.

and you get the next issue, you know, this was the power of RSS, really simple syndication. Shout out Dave Weinier. Man, it's just the fact that it, oh, there's another one. Okay, yeah,

maybe I'll have another one. Sure. You know, it's like the bartender bringing you a refill to your drink without you asking for it. It's like, oh, it's there. I might as well have a sip.

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slash twist. We love inbroker. I use inbroker. They're an amazing team. They do a great job for startups. Whether you're in year one or year five, go useembroker.com slash twist. So how has it affected business? I don't think you have advertising on it. I don't remember hearing ads, but you have something called like a chatty-cathy club, which I think is a discord, which I think people pay for,

but you kind of don't explain it on the show, which I think is interesting. Yeah. And you also don't talk about your own business on the show, so you don't talk your book too often. I didn't know about Ghost. I knew about the other stuff you were doing because when somebody sent it to me,

I just clicked the links in the show description. But someone's like, yeah, I know, Fred Wilson or somebody, you know, your friend backed them. And I was like, oh, really? What's that? So what's the philosophy of the format and making money from it or not? You know, how do you look at it?

Yeah, I think on the, on the format, it's meant to be as a casual conversation amongst friends about the things that I feel like, people should know in their daily conversations. The one caveat that we've changed is we've removed politics from our discussions. It became very polarizing with our audience where my DMs were like either, it's like visceral reaction either way on so many topics during the last election that we felt like we aren't political experts. Like you guys are much more knowledge about politics than we are. We're very familiar with local politics, but like national politics, I would say,

say we're not experts and definitely not policy experts, which just offend people when you don't have the perspective around it. So we kept politics out of it. And then what's happened is, is our downloads are great for a podcast with a very culty community. If you were to go out to like the top 10 podcasts, we don't have the downloads of those, millions of downloads an episode. And so what we found is our advertisers are our listeners. And so there are people in our our ecosystem that want to reach other listeners of the podcast. And so that has been our best way to monetize it. So the folks at Ledger had a year-long sponsorship with us. And there's been a number of other businesses and brands, like car trackers, which is a way to sell your car. Like,

these have been incredible partners of ours that help kind of support the cost and, and, you know, pay all the people that work on the show. Monetizing it for us, probably similar to you guys, It's not our core business. So we're kind of, we're not too sure how we want to go about it because we're not going to be active on social media, promoting other brands and promoting other businesses. So we've taken that approach. But we do want to give back to our community. So we did create basically, we don't want to call it an NFT, but it is a technically an NFT.

It's called the chatty-cathy club where we've charged $250. It's an access to the community. and what we're rolling out are a series of events of what I believe would be a cooler, more fun version of a networking event. Similar to what you guys did with All In Summit. We are hosting a series of events over the next couple years where we bring our community together. We have changed so many lives. We've made people like quit their job, go learn how to encode, double their pay.

We've gotten people fundraising. We've made business partners. People have started dating. People have gotten married. people have, you know, there's so many different stories, like I'm sure you guys have heard of yours. You made such a big impact on people's lives, and it feels really, really good to do that. And so, yeah, we want to crystallize that. And so this is our way of, like, doing it in a more, in a more, like, kind of organized fashion. So we created the club, we created some merch around it.

And we just want, like, it's nice when I wear our hat and, like, people just walk up to me at the Laker game or the Dodger game. They're like, oh, what's up? No chat or at the airport or something like that. It's just a way of crystallizing the community. And I think that's how we feel about monetizing it. I think if I didn't have another, this full-time business, I would go all in on it, because I think it is so powerful if you can control. Like there's, you know, I always joke, like, you look at how much Rush Limbaugh I used to make doing terrestrial radio. Like, this is a more powerful medium. People, yeah, don't realize how big those syndicated radio shows got. Now, the numbers are a little funky, but, you know, over, you know, it's in the 10 million range in terms of like

their reach was 10, 20 million Howard Stern at the peak, Rush Limbaugh. And I think some of those like crazy folks still exist on like terrestrial radio, but I think it's only boomers who listen to it. And then I saw today Howard Stern trending on Twitter. And I grew up a huge Howard Stern I'm like, huge. I wonder what's going on. Why, you know, did he get canceled again or what? And it was like, oh, the NBA players don't recognize me at the Knicks games. And they come over and they talk to Tracy Morgan and Chris Rock who are sitting on either

side of me and they don't say hi to me. And I was like, that's what happens when you go behind a paywall. Like, if it was Joe Rogan or, you know, I mean, I go to NBA games and I know a couple of the players because they listen to the pod and they're into venture and invest. staying in like, you go behind a paywall, you secure the bag. And I think he went down to probably a million listeners from like 20 or 30 million. So you just think about cultural relevance. You get hundreds of millions of dollars from a small group of people, one or two million, paying $100 a year, $200 a year for their serious XM. And then you don't get recognized at the NBA games, which is,

yeah, pretty crazy. Tell me about ghosts. What is ghosts? What is this, the premise of this business. And congrats on getting Fred Wilson. I wonder if your experience on the podcast was one of the reasons they invested. Yeah, it's really interesting. So during COVID, we saw this enormous amount of supply chain disruptions. You know, everyone was talking about, everyone is aware with it. Goods were coming in late. And in apparel, when you receive jackets in the summer, you're basically shit out of luck. There's nothing you can do. You have to hold them for a whole another year. And so what we started kind of struggling with is the piling up of inventory during COVID that we just could not liquidate. And what I found was I've been in

the industry for a very long time, know all the characters, whether it be retailers, middlemen, brokers, you know, small brick and mortar retailers. And I found it very, very painful to actually liquidate the product. And so started doing a bunch of homework on the space and realized like There's been basically no innovation or investment at the end of the product lifecycle when it comes to like venture particularly. And just to put into context, most people in America shop at the end of the product lifecycle at discount retail. Really? Oh, actually, that does make sense. Like so. TJ Max.

Yes. T.J. Max is $60 billion a year business. Burlington Code Factory, $10 billion business. These are massive, massive retailers. where America shops, 99 cent store, dollar general. This is a liquidation inventory that ends up there. Even Sam's Club, Costco, all of these people buy this product. And so we were like, there's no like focus or connectivity from those brands to those retailers.

These retailers are scouring the world for inventory. Tapping on the phone and fax machines and email. Yeah, literally facts still. And like messy spreadsheets and like weird shady characters saying they have. 200,000 lipstick of Revlon in New Jersey. Maybe it's real. Maybe it's not. Could have fallen up a truck.

Tony said the person's name might be soprano. Yeah, exactly. Who is it? A lot of that going on. An inventory is all over the world. The best brands have inventory stuck in Switzerland, Amsterdam, China, Australia. So we were like,

how do you build the pipes to connect all of these sellers and buyers? And so what Ghost is a private B2B marketplace. It's private because the best brands in the, world do not want to let anyone know how much excess inventory. If you look at the Nike stock six months ago, they came out and said that their inventory position ballooned to $9 billion, 20% drop in the stock overnight. Yeah. And so it is so sensitive to the publicly traded companies. And so what we wanted to do is build a platform where the seller controls who has access to the inventory. So the seller, when they list it a lot, they can select a brick and mortar versus

is online retailer, only Japanese retailers, if that's all they want to liquidate in. Got it. So the power is all in the seller. And then the buyer has the ability to make offers. And then we have tools like financing and logistics that help facilitate. So it's this huge market that basically has been forgotten by technology. Yeah. And so it was a way, you know, being an insider, we kind of knew what product that we had to

build to make it easy for both sides. So we ended up raising our seed round. in November of 21 with equal ventures in ENIAC. And then... Peak market. Got a good valuation? I got a good valuation there. And then I raised April of last year, which was pretty tough.

Brutal market, but... Sideways valuation, perhaps. Yeah, yeah. We actually got a pretty good markup because a lot of tailwinds in the business. And Union Square Ventures came to the tables. A woman named Rebecca Caden, who sits on our board, just absolutely been transformative for us. And what's funny is, is we're in that process again right now. So it's interesting how climate evolves with what's happening in the macro world.

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But there's a, you're getting investors, if you're a money losing business and you're investing in the business to grow it, you do have to understand the cycles and valuation. And despite us as, you know, me as a former entrepreneur or an entrepreneurial investor, I guess is how I described myself and a journalist previously. I tried to explain this to folks. I know you can get the sick valuation. You raise $10 million on a $50 million post and you don't have a product in market yet. And there's like some first time fund that wants their crypto, you know, blockchain investment.

But we, you know, have fun for two years, but make this money last. There'll be pressure for you to spend it. I would make sure you hit some revenue milestones here so that you can backfill reality. because there will come a time when the public market comps will be brought up when it comes to your evaluation. Oh, yeah. Now it's happening. Oh, yeah, definitely.

And it's funny is that, you know, what's funny is just seeing the climate from, you know, what you hear from folks is venture has always been the most optimistic form of capital, right? They are looking. They're believers in the future. They want it to work. They're looking for every reason to say yes. Whereas today, venture is looking for every reason to say no. So I'm sure that's just an overcorrection from the last couple years.

It is probably the new entrance into venture, of which I am one. I started investing right after the 2008 cycle, which was incredible. Like to start after the great financial crisis, we'd be like starting investing this year. By the way, it would be a great time. I'm like raising my fourth fund right now, which one for. And it's like amazing because I'm deploying capital in companies that are incredibly focused capital efficient and who have expectations of valuations that are incredibly reasonable, and they know they have to hit milestones in order to get the next funding round, not, you know,

put on a great show and do some sizzle and some tap dancing and then be like, ta-da. People are like, okay, can I see a spreadsheet? What's your percentage growth? And, you know, it's just this is the best time to be an investor or a founder. As I tell everybody, fortunes are made in the down market. They're collected in the up market. I agree. I mean, I'm so excited about being a founder right now because it also like the best businesses are rising to the top too.

Yes. If you have execution, you have a real business and you have a real team, you are getting deals done. And maybe it's not at the price you want, but you're still getting deals done and you get to go build your business, which is a privilege in itself. I always tell founders, like, if you can send a chart, like send this is your email to a VC. Dear Fred Wilson, a big fan of your blog. I love this blog post. We have figured something out in this marketplace of, you know, discounted goods that are, you know, off-season.

And yeah, we're growing 37% quarter over quarter. And here's a chart. We'd love to catch up with you sometime. I'm going to be in New York next week. I'm available any time for a 15-minute coffee. And I give people this, like, little script. And they're like, that'll never work. I'm like, humor me.

send 10 email. So like, I got nine responses. I'm like, send the 10th one, another response and say, didn't hear back from you. We'd love to catch up. I got all 10. And you know how I did that? I had met Bezos, Jeff Bezos, at an event, at a dinner. And I told them what we were doing at Weblogs. And he said, if you're ever in Seattle, come by. And we had Engadget, joystick, these couple of blogs. And I told my partner Brian Alvia, I was like, we're going to Seattle next week. Be prepared. I'm going to get us a meeting with Jeff. So I emailed Jeff Bezos and I said, Jeff, great to meet you. We're launching our second and third blog. And we just got Samsung to sponsor the video game blog for, you know, six months. And they're paying us in advance. I'm going to be in Seattle next week. We'd love to meet you and your team for 20 minutes. And his assistant responded immediately.

Wow. I lied. We had no hotel. We had no tickets. I wasn't in Seattle next week. And I was like, if I can meet Jeff and just on the spot, offered to put in 500K. Wow. Crazy, right?

And then... That's insane story. But I mean, if you give them the green light, hey, I happen to be in town, I'll meet any time, and then you give them... I could show you what we're building next for 20 minutes. It's like, you're being respectful of their time, et cetera. And you see...

But that's a lost art. That's a lost art, Jason. Like, a lot of the younger people, I think they feel like they're owed the time. Oh, really? Yeah. I think they're just like... There's a humility of, like what I remember like early internet, everyone's email was on their website.

Sure. You could email anybody. And I would email people and be like, can I get five minutes of your time? It'd be so grateful. I'm a student at USC. And people would respond. I'd literally take five minutes. I'd send them a thank you card and, you know, they were very respectful.

Today it's like, people like, yo, let's meet. I was like, for what? No, I get those emails. And I'm like, is this like a, I just assume it's fishing or spam. And I didn't realize it's culturally, it's cultural stupidity. I mean, no, it is. People are just dumb. Yeah.

Self-awareness is not, is not a big trait these days. I would say, guess what? Like, reality is here now. And like, you better have a chart. You better have an MVP. You better have a squad, you know, two co-founders. People email, like, I want to talk about my ideas. I'm like, uh, yeah.

Great. talk to your pals, like ideas. Like, I've got 300 emails from people who have, you know, two years of revenue who want to meet. Like, I got to get through those first. Yeah. If I get to the point at which, like, the MVP's, and then maybe I guess I could get to the idea group,

you seem to understand marketing really well. And I think your content marketing is really cool. And then you also, did you do the Run Club or was one of your other co-hosts? No, I do it. So explain this, is this also seemed like you just natively understand something about community or people. I guess you're like an ENTJ on the Myers-Briggs, if I had to guess. Did you ever take that, the Myers-Briggs?

I think in college. It's more scope for men. Yeah, exactly. How you can think about it. Yeah. You're definitely highly extraded. So tell us about the run club thing you did. And did that have any impact on the business?

Oh, my God. The run club is like the most amazing thing I've ever done. So five years ago, we were starting a running brand in our core business, 5-4, and, you know, wanted a way to market the brand. And one of the guys I worked with was like, hey, you know, I know you run all the time. Would you ever do a run club? I was like, I would love to do a run club. I don't have the bandwidth to, like, promote it.

But like, I would do it. And so he's like, great. He's like, just posted on your Instagram, tell people to come run. So Saturdays we used to meet in West Hollywood. And every Saturday we'd come meet. No agenda except to run. And, you know, pre-pandemic, we were getting 100 plus people to run up Sunset Boulevard every Saturday morning.

Wow. And it was the most amazing founders, investors, actors, just college kids. It was just like this insane community. So many friendships were formed. Businesses were started. And then unfortunately, the pandemic ended up killing. like the momentum of it. And then a lot of people moved and people got older and kids and whatever.

But then when everything kind of normalized maybe end of last year, I was like, I'm still showing up to the spot every Saturday on Santa Monica and Doheny. Anyone wants to come. Please come. Nice. People started coming again. And so, and what I realized and how it really picked up was I would on the podcast say, I'm in New York City.

I don't have time to meet everyone for drinks. Who wants to go for a run Thursday at 6 p.m. And 50 people showed up. Then I'd be in Paris. Hey, and it's freezing cold snow. Anyone want to meet? Five people showed up. Miami, Denver, Texas, Tennessee, wherever I was.

That was my way to like, because the problem is, is I do think, like, inherently, everything generally evolves around alcohol. Yes. Tragically. I very much enjoy drinking tequila and it's a big part of my life. but like I don't always want to be forced to go have a drink. If you're an entrepreneur and you make that like another focus of your life, you're going to get beat by your co,

by your competitors who are not doing shots on a Tuesday. I mean, yeah, exactly. So I was like, productivity killer. Exactly. So I would be like, how do I meet all these people and give them all some time and build this community?

So we started this run club and it still goes. I mean, I push a stroller with my two-year-old in it, My six-year-old is biking. It's like a family thing now. And it's the power of meeting people in person is just irreplaceable. I agree. And I think that community building is so important to me.

And, you know, I'm so diehard L.A. West Hollywood that like when I walk down the street on sunset, like I know everybody. And it's like something I pride myself on. You like to start up forest gum. Yeah, exactly. And then one day I had to say. added to stop. Remember that they just stops?

Everybody's like, and everybody stops in the middle of nowhere. It's like running across the country. It's like, I think I'm going to stop. And they're like, but you're a guru and you haven't shaved it a year. We just all have to figure out what to do with their lives. It's hilarious. Yeah, but it's awesome.

It's fun. Well, I mean, I am literally looking to get a space in San Mateo where I am because I'm having so many founders who want to get to get together. together. And so I did it out my attorney's office last week. I had like seven of our accelerator companies come to Fenwick. And then I had a hundred founders from our founding university live from around the world for one hour at Wilson Sincini. So I made it like two or three hours because I was like, these people flew in from like Hong Kong, Estonia. Wow. And so now I'm just going to like, you're a run club. I'm getting a physical space.

And I'm just going to do like a this week in startups episode, which is just Q&A. So I'm just going to tell people open Q&A, open pitches. It's like open mic night for startups. I'll just be there. Here's a microphone. Here's a microphone for you. You get one minute to pitch. I'll give you some candid feedback. If you got our actual product, you can do two minutes. If you got a product with revenue, you can do three minutes. So like, I'm going to come up with some sort of format. You can pitch your idea for one minute. If you got a MVP, you get two minutes. If you have revenue, you get an extra minute and you can show your charts. You know what's, you know why that's so special is because my view on the world was always like,

I grew up in LA in the San Fernando Valley, went to public school, and when I got to college at USC, I realized that based on, you know, where you grew up and what high school you went to, your life trajectory is very different. Yes.

And your access is very different. And what I always prided myself with the run club or the podcast was like, I want to level the playing field for everything. Yes. Because going to Stanford is the only way people used to be able to get venture money. Of course, yeah.

And like the people that come to your event are people that would never get in front of a traditional VC. Zero chances. We know the biases of venture community. They're like, oh, he went to Stanford. I'm like, well, what does that mean? Yeah. You're good on a standardized test. Oh, you're a developer.

Okay? You're probably an introvert. Like, we understand code's going to move the world. But now with like what I'm seeing with AI from the inside, I think all developers get 10 times faster. And the new coding language is like, it's not going to be like Ruby or C++ or whatever you're using, Python.

It's like the new programming language is called English. Yeah. And you're just going to talk to. Prompting. Yeah. I mean, prompt engineering, it's like actually working. And I have everybody in my company using it.

And I got, of 20 people in the investment company, I'd say I got five who are actually doing meaningful stuff. And two weeks ago, or two months ago, it was zero. two weeks ago it was one or two and I think I'll get 15 out of 20 by the end of this month because I just keep telling them like

if you don't use this technology you're done not that I'm going to fire you I just think you're done in your career it's kind of like the people who I don't know if you caught the tail end of this but people who didn't know how to use Microsoft

office or Windows or a computer and email and they were like yeah my secretary will print out my emails for me and you're like first we don't use that word anymore and their executive assistants. And two, like, do you really want them printing out your emails and filling trees? Like, it's crazy.

Yeah. Stop using your personal phone for your startup in 2023. You have to stop doing this. It's such a common mistake that founders made open phone has totally rethought every detail of what a business phone should look like in 2023. And it's so affordable you have no excuse. They make it super easy to get a business phone number for everybody on your team. It works through a beautiful web app on your phone or your desktop.

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And he says, I'm not paid to say that. I don't know, Jason, pure honest feedback and appreciation. And you know what? I love to hear this because there's so many people who listen to this podcast who are founders and you need to use these tools. But listen, you might be cash constrained or you might want to put that cash into your product. Open phone is already affordable. At a starting price of only $13 per user per month. but Twist listeners can get 20% off any plan for your first six months at openphone.com slash twist.

And if you have existing numbers with another service, no problem. Openphone will port them over at no extra cost. So had to openphone.com slash twist to start your free trial and get 20% off. You understand marketing really well. I had a really interesting conversation about this Bud Light situation. And I thought I'd bring it up here, not because any of us don't think trans people shouldn't We have incredible protection, rights. Obviously, we all think that.

But there is something bigger going on here with regard to consumers feeling empowered, you know, maybe marketers not understanding who their actual consumers are or people politicizing everything. And I thought you had some very good points on it. And I think I gave you the free pass here. Yeah. You believe everybody has a right to love whoever they want and to be whatever gender they want and can use whatever pronouns they run. Obviously, we all think that. So, I mean, I don't know if we all think that, but I think anybody listening to this podcast thinks that. I mean, there might be some people who

are like stuck in some, you know, religious funk or something and they are basing their lives on a book that's 2,000 years old and, you know, favors stoning and beheadings. But putting all that aside, what's your take on the consumer activism and what we saw there in terms of engaging influencers, et cetera. Yeah. I think the, the, the, interesting. thing that I've always noticed with brands is if activism is not rooted in your brand, then it's very, very hard to choose when you jump in on the conversation. And so Patagonia, Ben and Jerry's, Nike, they've always been vocal people in their way they market. Like, that is their, that is their part of their marketing strategy as a brand. And so it's very

comfortable for them to speak out on any issue and not get any backlash from their core consumers. Like when Nike doubled down and Colin Kaepernick, they knew their audience is Gen Z. They care. It's always about the youth for Nike. So they don't care what anyone else thinks. And they know their, and they know their audience. So some boomers hate this kneeling thing and these protests and they really feel strongly about the national anthem and this is completely inappropriate.

They're like, we can lose some boomers. They're not buying that many. shoes and these Gen Zs are buying, you know, in the app, two, three pairs of shoes a month. That app is addicting, by the way. That Nike app is crazy. Exactly. And they know. And look, as much as it is about activism, this is a business decision.

Nike knows all matters is cared to the youth. So if the youth want to support Colin Kaepernick, so is Nike. And so they know that and they are doubling down on that. Bud Light has never been a politically charged brand and their core consumer is just, it's the run-of-the-mill guy that watching the NFL. That is their core consumer. It's bros, right? Like, I want to have a Bud Light when I'm at a football game.

That's, you know, beginning and end of it. Yeah. That's it. And I appreciate their attempt to go younger, but like it doesn't make sense. You're an alcohol brand. You know, if you went to a 30-year-old consumer, it's not like, like they're anti-anything. They just don't participate in that conversation. And they just, honestly, all they care about is football and racing and basketball playoffs. It's a very simple-minded

consumer. And so I thought it was like inappropriate for Bud Light from a marketing strategy to do anything outside of the fairway, which is just stick to what you know. The brand is so iconic. And now like when you read the headlines that their sales are down 26% in the last week. What is happening there? Because is this like, I don't know if you monitor like Ben Shapiro, the, you know, podcaster on the right. Yeah. Who is clearly like the smartest kid in your classroom who like raises his hand and shouts out the answer before anybody. So he's clearly like very insightful.

But also like he really has been going after brands as a strategy. So I think he might be like one of these major factors in this because he can. keeps talking about it. And his other guy who did, I don't know the other guy's name, but there's a guy who's like super anti-trans who did this documentary, what is a woman. And he just is on Twitter all day long, you know, he's got very strong Catholic or I think Christian feelings about this issue, whatever. But they created a razor brand because some razor brand stopped advertising. And so they counterprogrammed by creating a brand. So you didn't have to use woke razors. And I'm like, Whoa. And then he's been going crazy like that Elsa from Frozen, Frozen in Frozen 3, 4, 5, whatever it is, is going to be a lesbian.

And I'm like, who cares? Like, yeah. And they're like, well, there's no sexuality in these like Disney movies. There's no, you know, gender. And, you know, this is something they're bringing up for the first time. I'm like, I'm sorry, did you miss the complete Disney princess industrial complex for the last 50 years of like, you know, you know, handsome prince handsome prince sexually assaulting like sleeping beauty and kissing her without permission and then he's like really wild up about

I think like the little mermaid's going to be black and that's tweaked him oh yeah oh yeah so where do you stand on Disney having representation

that seems to me to be a fine thing to be on brand about to show different characters like that's something they've been doing they did they've been going

right down the line with representation Yeah. I think Disney has a challenge because the consumer is actually the parent because they're the ones spending the money, but the person consuming the content is a young person. So it's a really, it's a really interesting dilemma that they face, which is very different than a Bud Light. Yes. So like the parent now may be saying, hey, I don't feel comfortable with this content that Disney is putting out, whereas the children don't care. They're happy to just watch the content. And I think like when I look at like even my children, they don't see color, right?

They don't see the same things that like we saw as children. And so they're being exposed to things at a younger age, which I don't mind. I think there's a time that they should be exposed to all walks of life and they should be able to understand it. I think Disney just has a tough balance because the person spending the money is an adult. The person consuming the content is a child. And if the adult doesn't feel comfortable with that, that is the tough part for Disney. Yeah. And so that's generation. It's pretty interesting. You know, boomers might be like, I don't know. Let's keep it. You know, yeah. Yeah, they had a gay character, though. In the, the guy Josh Gad played. Oh, yeah. He, the Gaston's like number two guy. Yeah. Who's clearly really

into Gaston. I mean, he sings a song about him. And that was, I think, their first. And that was, I think, their first, like, you know, yeah, uh, gay moment there, uh, in, absolutely.

It's pretty, uh, that's funny. Yeah. Tell what the audience, how influencers now are impacting fashion, cosmetics,

like we know about Mr. Beast. We obviously know about the Kardashians, but it seems like sometimes these things work incredibly well. Yep. And then most time, most of the time,

they just seem to be just a complete disaster and train wreck. So what makes this work? when it does work. Yeah, I think the thing, and it's such an overused word, but like exact authentic usage of the product actually makes a difference. If you can't just go and keep promoting something that you don't actually use and wear, so like if you're a celebrity or an influencer and you do YouTube videos and you're talking about like a brand that you love, but you're never seen wearing it, then like when you're on

the couch watching TV, you need to be wearing that brand. Otherwise, it doesn't connect. If you're out getting your makeup ready, like the most influential woman on TikTok right now is Alex Earl. She's a young woman from Miami. She is just a powerhouse in marketing right now. Beauty brands, just deal with Victoria's Secret. Like, she moves the needle.

But her videos on TikTok are her, like, in a camera in front of her mirror, like getting dressed up, getting ready for the night. I'm wearing this lip gloss, I'm wearing this makeup, or wearing this top. And then you see her out at night partying wearing that outfit looking like that. The consumer is like, oh, it's real. She went out to Carbone in Miami wearing this outfit. And so you relate.

Now the consumer is like, I'm along for the journey. And the Kardashians are the best at this because they've translated the marketing to real life really, really well. Whereas someone like a Beyonce who pushes, promotes products, we never see Beyonce in her casual setting. We don't see her on the couch watching TV with her kids. So we don't know if she's really wearing this stuff or not. And it's a reason why like Rihanna or some of these stars sell more product than someone

like a Beyonce. It's because it's just like authentically not shown to the consumer. It's feel like it's pushed on. That makes total sense. And this generation looks at marketing something completely different than Gen Xers, I think. The idea of getting a brand sponsorship for boomers like the Rolling Stones, they literally were like, we do not want our music, the doors, the Beatles, in any way used in any marketing.

And then at some point, the money just gets too big. And like the Rolling Stones, you start me up famously for the Windows 95 launch. And it was like, oh my God, they used it in a commercial. These guys are sellouts. Yeah, yeah. But how does this new Gen Z group, look at selling out because it doesn't seem to be selling out to them.

No, I think there's no rules anymore. You could do whatever you want in the Gen Z world. Like, everything can be perceived cool or everything could be perceived corny. The problem is, is that everyone has an opinion now. Before, it was just on TV, you saw the commercial, maybe you'd hear some chatter in your local, you know, coffee shop. today the moment someone put something out,

like to your point earlier about what's happening with Bud Light and a lot of these Disney things is it actually all comes back to community. If you scream something loud enough, there are other people who think that, and now you feel like you belong to something. So that mob mentality becomes community. And so they're like,

we all recognize we're not going to drink Bud Light anymore. You go to the bar, you are now part of a group of people that resonates with now your friends. It's the same thing if you wore a Lakers shirt and you go to a bar in L.A., then everyone's like, oh, the Lakers, you know, whatever. And so it's the same thing with like activism.

You found, on the internet. You find your tribe so easily. You start screaming crazy shit. There's like 10,000 other people that are also like, I agree with your bad shit crazy thing. Absolutely, I'm crazy too. Let's go for a run. Yeah.

Let's go. When can we get together? because I saw somebody share. It's so interesting how influential like an image or a video is in today's world. Like you must have seen it as well, but there was a video of like, I don't know,

a Boston baseball stadium. And there's like a ton of people in line. And then there's like a dedicated bud light. You know, like sometimes brands have their own like stands. Yeah. Yeah. And there's nobody online at the bud light one.

Now we don't know if there's nobody working it and it's closed. Yeah. Exactly. Or it was before it opened even. Yeah. Like maybe it's just like it. But they're like, look at this.

Nobody's online. But then they showed like the hot dog line is like packed. And I'm like, is that because there's nobody working that? But man, it is incredible what a video can do to just, yeah, reinforce something or friend like that.

It's because people just grab, they want to grab onto something and just run with it because they want to stay relevant for the moment. So like you have like people like play Travis who just grab, anything that's like, you know, topical where he gets a lot of attention, especially on like conservative views. And he knows it works every single time.

He's smart enough to know that if I just jump on this, it'll resonate with a bunch of people. And so that's how the, unfortunately, that's how media works now. Yeah, I think that's Ben Shapiro's thing too. He's like,

oh, Biden misspoke. Okay, this brand is woke. Yeah. Mispoke, woke, go broke. Let's go. And he's making something like 120, million dollars with that business now. Oh my God.

It's bonkers. Yeah, it's just like, wow, the power of these podcasts and just direct consumer is extraordinary. As we wrap up here with Ghost, luxury brands, my understanding is once they go down market, they're trapped. They can't get back up market again. It's like swimming against the tide. And so is it true that like the top.

brands would rather shred like last season's purses and create more scarcity and just burn them than to sell them on a marketplace like yours. And so there's like just, I don't know, the top 10% of brands are just never going to participate. And people like rip their logos off stuff and offer like, hey, this is an Armani jeans, but we're going to just take the logos off and you can see them as whatever jeans you want. Yeah. Historically, that was very much the case. They would burn or shred the product. Today, because of sustainability laws globally, especially in places like France and Italy,

those laws are becoming pretty strong where you cannot do that. So now they are forced to find channels where they can't liquidate. Like if you went to a T.J. Max in L.A., in the middle of town, there is Gucci, there is St. Laurent, there's Montclair. There are the best brands in the world.

They are there. And so those are very particular locations. because of the demographics. But the good thing now is that there's so many different channels in which you could liquidate. You can liquidate on the Real Real or Stock X. You can liquidate on a live streaming platform, you know, like whatnot. There's a thousand places now that you can quietly move your inventory without hurting your business. That's the difference between today and 20 years ago.

You would be stuck only going to T.J. Max, which for some people is tough. Yeah. You ever see this website Italic.com? Yeah, it's great. I know them about well. Yeah, I had them on the podcast. This is like the craziest thing I ever saw. They'll take like these sunglasses and they're like, we're going to make these sunglasses.

We'll find the factory in Vietnam, China, India, wherever. Yeah. And then we'll find the factory that makes super dry or Chanel glasses. We'll put like, oh, these are the past clients of that factory, how long they've been operating. and then we'll have them make their own cool glasses for $45, which is a sunglasses I sent to you. And they're like, yeah, these have Zice lenses in them. These are incredible. They have OBE hinges.

And I'm like, okay, I know what a Carl Zice is. I don't know what like mezzalucci acetate is. Okay, designed in Italy, whatever that is. Acetate is the best quality of sunglasses. Got it. And I guess the ones designed in Italy are the super best. Yeah. And it's like it's 10% of the price of Oliver Peoples or.

It's, yeah, fifth of the price of purcells. Yeah. What do you think of that, like the value brand concept? And do young people like that or do they still want the Prada logo and they want to? Yeah. I think there's definitely a large enough consumer base that just wants really high quality products. And they're very much appreciative of it. So the good news is this market is so big.

There's something for everyone. So there's people that are going to appreciate what Italic does and they make really high quality products and that's what matters to them and they're willing to accept a non-branded version of a high quality product. Then there's a lot of brand hoars and they just want logos. If you walk around suburbia, America, all you see is logos. Every t-shirts a logo, every hats a logo, every shoe's a logo. Like, it's just what Americans want. We love logo. It could be underarmor, it could be Louis Vuitton, could be Saint Laurent, could be Montclair. We want logos. And so.

So funny. Yeah. It's just, it's just, Zach showed up for all in with this Montclair hat. He's like, I don't want to take showers anymore. I think that's the kind of thing. But he's like,

I'll just put like a $1, $1,200 hat on or wherever the hell that thing costs. So that's a joke. I was like, I went to like someone who works around. I was like, can you find me like on, you know,

one of these Chinese sites or whatever, like, or Etsy, like some Fugazi Monclair logos. Yeah. And they're like, yeah,

it's like, 10 bucks for 10 logos. I was like, yeah, order it. And all of a sudden from France, I get hand stitched or machine stitch that somebody was making in France of the Montclair logo, spelled slightly wrong, but you know, you would never know. And I literally just put it on like my Uber hat, put it on my shirt, put it on my jacket. And then I just show up like on the podcast or like at a dinner at his house with six Montclair logos on everything.

That's a goof. I thought it was like the greatest. Oh, God. That's good. You could completely do that, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's what people want. I was so bummed.

I bought this E.S. A. Blazer, which, like, everybody was, like, sweating these ESAIA blazers. Like, oh, those were gorgeous. So I went. I got one on sale because I don't like paying. You know, so I waited for the sale. I go, I buy it.

It's like a $4,000 jacket. I get it for, like, $1,600. It's like my go-to blazer. It's got the beautiful ESAIA pin. Pinfall sound. Gosh. Now I just got a jacket. Now I just got a suit supply, which I love,

you know, like a $100 suit supply jacket with no ESI. logo. I'm like, am I really going to be that guy who goes online or goes to the East IA story and says, listen, I bought this jacket, but I lost a pin. Can I get a pin and replace me? I would do that. I would do that. Kind of, I kind of screwed up. All right, listen, you guys are like, I feel like you guys are my baby bros on the pod. And so it's just awesome to see the great success for having. And thanks for the shoutouts. It's very kind of you. You guys mentioned the show once in a while. And it was great to have you on. Continue to see. success. You hiring people now? You're trying to get some people into this company?

Yeah, we're always hiring. Okay, what do you need? What are you looking for? And then how can people reach out? G-H-S-T.io. We have our careers page there. We're always looking for talented engineers that have had marketplace experience. That's very important for us. So you worked at Etsy, you worked at Kickstarter, Patreon, somewhere where you put two sides of Uber, DoorDash, any of those. marketplaces are it work to get them cranking, right? Yes, but when they go, they go.

Yeah. What's the most number of transactions you have on the buyer or sell side? Have you got like somebody who's just doing this like as their entire business is just moving stuff? Yeah, we've kind of gotten some retailers that now do 100% of their buying through us. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's significant. And our AOVs high, right?

So we have people doing like nearly seven figure transactions on the point. platform now. Oh. And you get 5, 10% of that or something? Higher, yeah. Oh, yum, yum. Well, well, done. Well, all right.

Well, I can't wait to do group chat. I'll let you know when I'm in LA. Please. We'll have a little dinner. We'll go for a little run. We'll do a pod. It'll be great. Yeah.

Tell the other voice, tell drama. I said hello. And then wait, who's your third? My brother, Anon. Anand, yeah. So that's your baby bro. Who's your CFO? Yeah.

Yeah. Baby bro, CFO? I like it. Well, now he was a very successful angel investor. So he's done. And he quit. Oh, he quit. Yeah.

No, I heard you guys going, I heard you guys going in on Apology. I guess you guys invested in his thing and it didn't work out. I was like, oh, wow. My brother's still heated. He's heated over that still. Oh, over you guys calling him out for. No, my brother. My brother was just, my brother was just bummed about how that deal turned out.

That's all. It is a bummer when people don't, yeah, whatever the situation is. But, yeah, they secure them. bag and like at the expense of the folks if that seems to be what happened. What did you think of his billion, it was a million dollar bet? Great for press. I think,

you know, yeah, he, he knows how to play the internet. He, he's like, he's playing the game of the Ben Shapiro's of the world. Yeah,

I was like, if he had, if he has like 5,000 Bitcoin, this thing goes up 4,000, covers the $2 million. So, and I think he did it when Bitcoin was at 23 and then they get spiked to 28. Yeah.

And he was like, no, that's not it. You know, I'm, You're making that up. I'm like, how many Bitcoin do you have? He's like, I can't say.

I'm like, is this, would it going up? 20% be material to your Bitcoin holdings? I think so. I think you're a millionaire. But I also thought it was pretty great. It'd be like me being like, I'll bet anybody that Uber goes to a hundred dollars a share. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if it goes up 10%, you're going.

Yeah, you're like, okay. All right, man. Talk to you soon. All right, thank you. Thanks for coming on.